Jan 31, 2015

Robert Cicetti claims he made worlds first hemp based 3d printing filament.
His pictures look cool but there are no details about the material or how its made. It is still cool, hemp could be very cost effective and environmentally sustainable filament source.
Since I have not found any additional information, the filament could be type of plastic polymer derived form hemp or some standard plastic like PLA with hemp fibre added. Both could have uses for 3d printing.
Hopefully Robert will publish some more data on his invention!

Hamp has some fiberous properties and it is not the first plant material used for making a 3d printing filament. Potato waste (Solany) and soy (FilaSoy) based filaments were made in the past.

Hemp is used to make high quality plastics for different purposes, you can read more about it here:

Jan 24, 2015

Dirk Grappendorf made this DIY computer based on 8-bit MOS 6502 CPU that was used in many popular home computers of the 1970s and 1980s like the Commodore 64 or the Apple II with 3d printed case.
He has detailed documentation so you can go step by step and make it yourself.
Very cool!

Ever needed some slicer settings for a printer or material you are not familiar with? SlicerShare is a webpage dedicated to shearing various slicer settings.
It looks like a cool idea and I hope that the user base will grow and more people will contribute ...
There are some 30+ slicer settings shared currently on the site.

Jan 21, 2015

UberBlox are modular building blocks for any type of machine ranging from wheeled robot to CNC mill. You can create anything you want.

Pick and Place delta robot made with UberBlox

UberBlox description from the company page:

UberBlox is a new high-quality metal construction set and prototyping system for makers to build rigid structures and automated machines.

At the heart of the system is a new single-connector locking mechanism which uses a common small tool to quickly and precisely lock each block to the next. The firmly connected blocks provide accurate, strong and rigid frames for a wide variety of structures and complex machines such as robots, CNC machines and 3D printers.

In addition to the basic blocks, the system includes a growing catalog of compatible and reconfigurable parts, including moving components, sub-assemblies, motors, electronics and controllers based on popular boards such as Arduino and Raspberry Pi, for a complete solution to the building needs of today's sophisticated maker.

"The Kiosk" is an EXCELLENT must-read (or listen) science fiction novella by Bruce Sterling which deals with the dystopian future and 3d printing.Bruce Sterling is a master SF writer famous for his work in fiction and technology theory and he currently lives in Serbia which is in my neighborhood and was once part of Yugoslavia.

The novella is clearly influenced by culture and history of Ex-Yugoslavia which makes it even more appealing to me.
It deals with life of kiosk owner Borislav from East Euroslavia who gets a "Fabrikator" machine. I will not spoil your enjoyment of the audiobook but it gets dark, violent, interesting ... there are 3d printed bullets printed with carbon particles and other 3d printed appliances ... the whole society of main protagonist is shaped by 3d printing...

You can download it here for free, it is read by Peter Cavell and starts around 10:30 into the podcast:

‘KIOSK’ explores a near future scenario in which digital fabrication is so ubiquitous that we see it appear on our street corners. With KIOSK the user can ‘appropriate, sample, remix, improve, up/downscale or copy new objects and 3D-print them on the spot.’ KIOSK operates as a portable 3D copyshop capable of producing a ‘custom made fix for your broken shoe, materialise an illegal download of Starck’s Juicy Salif orange squeezer that you modified for better performance or quickly print out a present for your sister’s birthday.’ For The Machine Unfold, in collaboration with Indianen, created a new creative digital copy station.

A project commissioned by Z33, House for contemporary art and MU Eindhoven. With the support of Bits from Bytes and Jo Van Bostraeten. A collaboration with Indianen.

Draken by 3DFacture is new DLP based LSA 3d printer that wants to enter affordable stereolithography market segment.

Key features from KS page:

Traditionally, 3D printers fall into two catergories: high resolution printers costing thousands of dollars, or low resolution ones costing under a thousand. The Draken prints at 37 microns on X-Y axis and can print down to 10 microns on the Z axis, which results in printing features as fine as a strand of hair.

Draken prints up to 8.66" tall with a 3.86" x 7.09" build base at 90 micron XYZ resolution, the largest and tallest among all personal SLA printers.

Because 3D printers can take several hours or longer to complete taller builds, it's important to reduce the noise pollution as much as possile. Draken makes almost no noise.

Draken is one of the fastest personal SLA printers in the market today. For other SLA printers to print a 6.5 inch Statue of Liberty with 100 micron Z resolution, it takes anywhere from 6 to 8 hours. With Draken, it only takes 3.6 hours.

The inner printer frame is made of an integrated piece of high-quality steel, the outer shell is a single piece of aluminum alloy sheet, which assures the stability and precision of the printer.

Draken is so flexible that you can easily take out the commercial-grade high definition projector and use it to project HD movies.

The patent-pending passive peeling technique in the build platform reduces the adhesion force at each layer separation and increases the printing speed dramatically.

For most SLA printers on market, the resin vat needs to be replaced every few months, because the silicone coating on the vat might get cloudy after extensive usage. In Draken, we bonded a thin Teflon layer on top of the silicon coating, which greatly extended the lifetime of the vat. You won't need to worry about frequent replacement of the vat anymore.

Draken supports all third-party resins. We have tested several stable resins for Draken with various properties. MakerJuice, MadeSolid, FTD, and even Formlabs resin work perfectly with Draken. Furthermore, Draken's materials development team has created our own resin, priced lower than all the others on market.

Draken technical specifications and comparison to other 3d printrs on the market:

Jan 19, 2015

While this is not exactly a 3d printer but a sort of plastic vacuum molding machine it shows that there is a long history of using heated plastic to reproduce 3d objects for everyday usage.
This is a photo of a Mattel Electric VAC-U-FORM children toy maker. Today would be probably prohibited due to dangers of letting kids play with molten plastics and very hot elements.
It is probably a grand grand granddaddy of modern home 3d printers. Maybe. Or a strange elderly and distant uncle ... still interesting ...

Source or copyright of the picture is unknown ... age also ... anyone knows more?

Update: It is form the early sixties and here is video of the TV commercial:

For other posts on the subject and curiosities for the paste start here:

European Space Agency is also sending a 3d printer to International Space Station. It will be the second 3d printer in space. The printer is named POP3D and it's developed in Italy. First ISS 3d printer is already working on ISS and was developed by "Made in Space" and delivered by SpaceX.

Here is the video by Altran:

From the source article:

Europe’s very first 3D printer in space is scheduled for installation aboard the ISS next year.Designed and built in Italy, it will be put to the test as part as ESA astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti’s Futura mission, and is set to reach orbit in the first half of next year. Samantha herself will be launched on her six-month Station assignment on 23 November.

“The POP3D Portable On-Board Printer is a small 3D printer that requires very limited power and crew involvement to operate,” explained Luca Enrietti of Altran, prime contractor for the compact printer.

The unit is a cube with 25 cm sides and prints with biodegradable and harmless plastic using a heat-based process.

“Part of the challenge of designing a 3D printer for the Station was to ensure its operation does not affect the crew environment,” added Giorgio Musso of Thales Alenia Space Italy, principal investigator for the project.

Funded by Italy’s ASI space agency, POP3D should take about half an hour to produce a single plastic part, which will eventually be returned to Earth for detailed testing, including comparison with an otherwise identical part printed on the ground.

“But right now the way parts are being produced in various different ways. As a satellite manufacturer, we need common standards in place so we can compare competing supplier parts on a like-for-like basis.

“Europe does have a lead in this technology – the latest laser machines are coming from here for export to the US and China – so we should build on that.”

Jan 18, 2015

Steve Jurvetson made this model hobby rocket which has 3d printed stabilizing fins made from PLA. The rocket is small but it went supersonic at Mach 1.8! Maybe this is normal for this type of DIY rockets but it looks great to me!

Here are the specifications of two rockets shown in the video:

The first one is a a minimum diameter 38mm blue tube + golf ball nose + 3D-printed Makerbot fin can. The J270 takes this puppy from 0 to 1,363 MPH (Mach 1.8) in 2.6 seconds! According to RockSim, it topped out at 9,454 ft.

The second flight was a simpler Estes with D12 booster staging to a C6-7, with a Sharpie pen as upper nose cone/weight. The J-motor on left is 32x the D motor on right.

Here is the picture of the rocket, you can clearly see the fin can at the bottom with heart shapes:

Here is Steve's TED talk about this rocket build. Looks like Steve is a big guy in tech field:

Steve Jurvetson may be one of the most respected and successful venture capitalists in Silicon Valley, but he is also an avid rocket maker, traveling regularly to Nevada's Black Rock Desert to launch the latest iteration. Steve shares blast-off stories and some thoughts about where his "hobby" and his profession intersect. From the Bay Area Maker Faire 2014 Center Stage.

Jan 13, 2015

Instructables user wootin24 developed a small multifunctional machine that can be a small (very small) CNC, plotter or 3d printer. It has fully 3d printable frame and it is powered by junk optical drive motors. 3d printable frame and recycled motors make it very cheap to make ...

All the files for this machine and instructions to make it can be found here:

It makes some nice prints (but there are no independent tests or review)... There were many 3d printer producers and Kickstarters that promised full color 3d printing, but results were disappointing or not delivered ...

Smith | Allen is a design company located in Oakland California and they posted a step-by-step guide on how to make a replacement or copy of a car key.

They took a photo of a broken car key, processed it in Fusion 360 and 3d printed in on Object Connex 500. You could use software you are used to or use Shapeways for printing the key. Simple FDM home printers were not used in the process so I'm not sure how the end result would be.

Do keep in mind that some keys have security codes so maybe you will not be able to start your car or you will trigger some sort of security protocol.

If you want to do this yourself, you will have to watch out for the thickness and strength of your 3d printed car key and that you don't brake it inside your ignition lock.

And now stories will be posted by fearmongers on vehicle security and potential for crime and how you should always keep your car key out of sight so that they can not be copied by taking a photo of them ...

Jan 12, 2015

While I was looking for a design of an automatic windows opening mechanism that I could use on my workshop I found this little jam on the YouTube.
The channel is just named "thang010146" and contains big number of video animations which show various mechanical movements and internal working mechanics of different devices in many areas like construction, engineering, hydraulics, gears, cams, robotics and many more. There are new videos coming up frequently.
If you are hobbyist, maker, engineer or just curious this is very useful reference base for finding solutions or inspiration.

Digitrax3D MH5 is a type of 3d printing copy machine with five extruders which can print five objects at the same time.
It is still a prototype but market for this type of device is probably growing and the team is working on versions with with 8 and 10 heads with a print area of 55 x 28 cm.

Digitrax technical specifications from manufacturer page:

The first 3D printer with 5 adjustable (in position and temperature) heads

Product 5 times faster

Rigid aluminum frame with A6063-T5 quality

Precision: 100μ

Filament: 1.75

Material: PLA for MH5, PLA, ABS for HD Version 5.1

Machine size: 77x57x55 cm

28x28x20 volume printing (15,680 cm3) - And soon 60x30 cm

Weight: 40 kg

Connection: USB or micro SD card

Nozzle diameter: 0.4 Standard, others on request

Possibility to choose of use 1 head or 2 or 5

Quick assembly, removing or adjustment spacing of the 5 heads

Individual temperature control by LCD for each head

Lighting by LEDs of the work plan

1 year warranty

Manufacturing: 3 to 4 weeks

Possibility of remote maintenance

With current 3D printers, for produce only 1 PLA pot of 8 cm high request 1h 4mn of printing time

Instructables user Unprecedented developed a useful little 3d printable cooling block for his Raspberry Pi. It holds a copper penny on the bottom as contact to hot chip and it has plastic tubing taking in cool and taking out hot water and thus cooling the chip.

It can be used on variety of electronic parts with Raspberry Pi and other small computers being the obvious choice if you are into overclocking. Water cooling is silent and can take away large amount of excess heat. It goes without saying, if the water leaks out it will badly damage your electronics.
You could also use 3d printed peristaltic pump to push the water or just have it stream from faucet ...

It would be interesting to see how much could the design be enlarged ...

3d printed cooling block attached to a Raspberry Pi. Copper penny is on the bottom touching the chip ...

Jan 11, 2015

FreeLSS is a simple DIY 3d scanner that looks easy to make if you know some basic stuff like 3d printing and Raspberry Pi operating. It has most of a parts 3d printable and electronics is based on Pi and Pi camera. It is open source and all the files are available! Kudos to the team!

FreeLSS description from the project page:

FreeLSS is a free as in open source, open hardware, and open electronic design 3D printable turn table laser scanning platform based on the Raspberry Pi. It is written in C++ and licensed under the GPL.

The scanning software runs self-contained on the Raspberry Pi without the need for a connected computer via USB. The user interface is completely web based and is exposed via libmicrohttpd on the Pi.

Laser sensing is performed via the official 5 MP Raspberry Pi camera. The camera can be operated in either video or still mode. Video mode camera access is provided by the Raspicam library. Reference designs for the electronics to control the lasers and turn table are available as Fritzing files. Access to the GPIO pins are provided by wiringPi.

FreeLSS technical specifications:

Fully 3D Printable

Point cloud export

Triangle mesh export

Assisted calibration

Support for dual laser lines (right and left)

Up to 6400 samples per table revolution (with reference electronics)

5 megapixel camera sensor

Support for camera Still mode and Video code

Configurable Image Processing Settings

Ability to generate images at different stages of the image processing pipeline for debugging

Here is a simple robotic walker that you can make yourself. It is powered by 9v battery and Arduino Uno controlled. It looks like ideal project for school or beginner robotics learning.
The project is developed by Instructables user Bit-Boy. Kudos Bit!

You will need lots of screws ... like really ...

All the files, code and detailed building instructions can be found here:

Triple Delta is robotic arm project where three delta mechanisms are connected together to get more movement freedom and longer reach. It can operate outside of standard volume for the same sized single delta arm.
Since there are many moving parts there is a long way until making it precise enough to 3d print with. You will probably see it first in some small home manufacturing robotic line moving and manipulating parts. In theory if you know delta mechanics you could make it yourself, I have note found any instructions or guides. You could go wild and add more Deta arms and make it a quad Delta or pentaDelta ...
It is developed by Aad van der Geest. Great work Aad! Hopefully we will see more information on your project!

Here is tripleDelta robot moving and stacking wooden cubes from a conveyor belt

I was just looking around what is industry standard and I found couple of videos from EnvisionTEC. They have some fine and expensive machines BUT as technology goes, one day you will have it on YOUR desktop.

... now, while you may have your workshop machine, most of you probably won't need a bioplotter since it is currently used as sophisticated medical instrument for special cases... or maybe DIY biohacking will explode. Making implantable 3d objects and body mods ... sounds like SF but we will see what future holds ...

Jan 6, 2015

XYZPrinting is well known for their Da Vinci machines just released three new machines, Junir with smaller volume, SLA Nobel and Food Printer which extrudes pastes or chocolate and makes food decorations.

Here is a video overview of Nobel. Tests or reviews are not yet available.

XYZPrinting Food 3d printer technical specifications:

Printer Dimension 420 x 427 x 605 mm

Print jets multiple (50-100 cc*3)

Nozzle diameter 1/2/4/8 mm (optional)

Display 5" touch screen

Connectivity USB

Maximum creation size 200 x 150 x 150 mm

Layer thickness 0.8-6.4 mm

Software XYZware

Operating System Win 7/Win 8/Mac OSX 10.8

File Types STL and XYZ format

Price: unknown

Here is a video of food printer in action of extruding chocolate letters on a bread slice:

XYZPrinting also presented some sort of food growing cube with salad growing inside it. Looks like some sort of hydroponics or growth medium desktop / indoor plant growing setup.
There are no independent test or reviews of any of those machines yet.

Ultimaker just released their two new 3d printers: Ultimaker 2 Go and Ultimaker 2 Extended: Go is smaller, portable and with non-heated printebed while Extended is 10 cm (4 inches) taller and gives you bigger printvolume.

The Ultimaker2 Extended is priced at $3030, some $500 more than the original, while the Ultimaker2 Go, is priced at $1450 Both will be available for pre-order in April 2015.

On a personal note, I'm little disappointed I expected more from Ultimaker then just different sizes. I thought that's what MakerBot does... I know that they are in direct competition and that there is probably market demand --- but still ... more innovation would be good ...

Lin3s is a simple CAD web tool that enables you to create 3d objects from simle line drawings. It works great for paste extrusion and air pressure extruders. Lin3s is developed by 3digitalscooks crew and they use it in their 3d printed food projects. Great work!

Here is a basic tutorial on how to use Lin3s with main options:

... and here is the result 3d printed with hummus (yes, hummus!) mmmm on nom nom ...

Jan 5, 2015

Voxel8 presented the world's first commercially available FDM 3d printer with conductive ink embedding (aka. electronics 3d printer). There have been several projects, conductive filaments that are available and DIY solutions but nothing on this scale and in a serious market oriented company. Technology was developed in cooperation with Lewis Research Group at Harvard University and software with Autodesk.

Voxel8 technical specifications:

Printing Technology: FFF, Pneumatic Direct Write

Build Volume: 4"x6"x4"(10X15x10cm)

Layer Resolution: 200 microns

Filament Size: 1.75mm

Pause / Resume Prints: Yes

Bed: Kinematically Coupled

Conductive Trace Width: 250 microns

Software: Hosted Cloud

Supported Files: STL, PLY, OBJ, OFF, AMF

Connectivity: USB, WiFi

Supported Browsers: Chrome, Firefox

Materials: PLA, Conductive Silver Ink

Conductive Silver Ink Resistivity: 5.00 × 10-7 Ω-m

Silver Ink Cure Time: 5 minutes

Here you can see how the Voxel8 deposits conductive wires made by extruding the special conductive ink on a internal layer FDM printed object. The electronic component is placed manually after the software stops the print process so the user can implant the chip. Voxel8 claims that they are primarily a materials company, so the ink is THE main component and technology.

Authentise computer vision will give you automatic print failure or error sensing with a simple web camera and alert you on your phone. it follows your 3d print progress layer by layer and registers any deviation from the original file.

Jan 4, 2015

Here is a new project of running a 3d printer with cheap DC servo motors. It was developed by misan from Spain and he used it successfully on x and y axis of his Prusa I3. Dc motors are controlled by Arduino Uno and the project is based on "servostrap" project. DC motors are cheap and can be found and salvaged in recyclable or scrap electronic device such as paper printers and others.

While there are more and more robotic DIY print-and-place machines, sometimes you just need to use your hand to remove some fine and hard to reach electronics. zapta designed 3d printable pick and place tool that uses modified medical needles and power of vacuum.

NEW: added a model for a mouth piece that allow to have a stand alone pick and place tool with no vacuum pump. The tube is a flexible silicon aquarium airline from a pet store. The filter is a universal 1/4" automobile fuel filter (filed to fit the airline).This is a single piece design a handle for vacuum hand picker for electronics SMT components. It has two versions, one with a release hole and without release hole (I am using the latter with a foot pedal and a 12V pneumatic valve for better release stability).

The printed release hole is intentionally small and you can drill a larger one if you want, or just print the no hole version and drill a hole wherever you want. The handle is compatible with standard industrial blunt needles (available on eBay) and with standard aquarium air hose (use silicon hose for better flexibility, e.g. "TopFin Silicone Airline Tubing").

The files with 'demo' in their name are provided to show the internal details. These are not the files you want to print.I printed it on a Prusa i3V using PLA, 20% infill, 5 top, bottom and vertical shells (in Slic3r) for better air tightness and no material support (otherwise you will block the internal air passage).

Air tightness is important for proper operation so you want to test it by holding it under water with the tip blocked and blowing into the hose. If you still see bubble through cracks and holes you may want to increase the number of shells, print slower, make sure you don't under extrude or fill the holes with glue (you can apply vacuum to such the glue into the holes).

This is a base design and hopefully others will improve on it. For example, forcing the air to flow near the release hole for minimizing the residual vacuum when released, a built in adjustable valve for regulating the desire lifting force, built in air filter or somehow making this thing ESD safe.

Jan 3, 2015

TriDom construction 3d printer is machine with excellent idea behind it! While other construction printers have complex and big gantry systems, TriDom is a retrofit kit that can be mounted on static or mobile cranes that are usually used in construction work. It can basically turn an existing crane in robotic arm where a crane does 80% of work and the TriBot frameless Delta does the other 20%. Simple and effective!
I'm not sure how will the crane and TriBot interface or how the crane will be guided? Maybe it can even be done manually for rough outlines and the TriDome mechanics will compensate for precision with agile printehead. We will see... very interesting and marketable tool...

TriDom is project by Yaron Schwarcz and Anielle Guedesv, and it is still being developed. Great work!